Child Pediatric Dentistry

It is of utmost importance for children to get their first dental checkup done at an early age. We at Dr Kandhari’s Skin and Dental clinic believe you should visit a dentist with your child as soon as their first tooth erupts. The purpose of this early checkup is manifold like to take the fear and apprehension for dentist out of the child. This is also the perfect time for the dentist to examine the development of the child’s mouth and any developmental problem can be detected at an early stage and preventive measures can be advised. Certain childhood problems like baby bottle caries, prolonged thumb sucking, teething problems and rampant or repeated caries can be prevented.

It is very important to retain the milk or baby teeth for a certain period of time until the permanent teeth erupt. The milk teeth act as space maintainers in children thereby maintaining the jaw shape and growth. Also any infection in the milk teeth can severely affect the underlying permanent tooth bud, thereby causing them to erupt abnormally and congenital enamel defects.

At Dr Kandhari’s skin and dental clinic our main aim while examining our young patients is to thoroughly examine all the newly erupted teeth, soft tissues and the growth and development of the jaws. This allows us to catch if there is any dental decay or caries at the earliest so that we can take adequate measures before it gets worse and the child develops pain.This also helps us to assess the child’s oral hygiene status and to inform the parents and teach them how to properly brush and floss the child’s teeth.

Also certain habits like thumb sucking, mouth breathing can be intercepted early and adequate preventive measures can be taken before the habit causes distortion of the teeth and the jaws. Also after examination if we feel the child is at a high risk for dental caries we put the child on a regular fluoride therapy after treating the caries. Hence we always recommend to start children on an early dental check up and care regimen. It is very important to maintain baby teeth because these teeth hold space for permanent teeth. eruption of permanent teeth. If a baby tooth is decayed or removed early, there is loss of space which is required for the eruption of permanent teeth. This can only be fixed with the help of orthodontic treatment. There can be cases of improper growth or weaker permanent teeth because of decayed baby teeth.